‘ 88 3 .] 
Merriam on a Bird new to Northern America. 
213 
ON A BIRD NEW TO NORTHERN NORTH 
AMERICA. 
BY C. HART MERRIAM, M. D. 
Among some birds sent me by Mr. Napoleon A. Comeau from 
Godbout, Province of Quebec, Canada, is a specimen of the 
Yellow-green Vireo ( Vireo Jiaviviridis Cassin). Mr. Comeau 
writes me that he found it, dead, near his home at Godbout, May 
13, 1883. The specimen agrees well with Baird, Brewer and 
Ridgway’s description of this species except in size, it being con- 
siderably smaller than the measurements there given. Its meas- 
urements are : wing, 72 mm. (2.83 in.) ; tail. 48 mm. (1.88 in.) ; 
bill, 10 mm. (.40 in.) ; while Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, in 
their diagnosis (Hist. N. Am. Birds, I, p. 359), give: wing, 
3.15 in. ; tail, 2.55 in. ; and bill, .41 in. The wing formula in 
the Godbout specimen is as follows : 2d and 3d primaries sub- 
equal ; 4th shorter; 1st between 4th and 5th, but much nearer 
4th (2 = 3, 4, 1, 5). The sides of the breast, axillars, and par- 
ticularly the crissum, are of a bright sulphur yellow, much more 
brilliant than in the brightest fall specimens of V. oiivaceus. 
Mr. Robert Ridgway of the Smithsonian Institution, to whom 
I submitted the specimen, writes as follows concerning it: u The 
Vireo sent for examination seems to be true V. Jiaviviridis but 
is unusually small for that species, the smallest example in our 
series of fourteen skins' having the wing 2.90 inches long, the 
average being a little more than 3 inches.” 
The northernmost record of V. Jiaviviridis that I have been 
able to find is that of a specimen procured at Fort Brown, Texas, 
August 23, 1 877, by Dr. James C. Merrill, U. S. A. (Proc. U. 
S. Nat. Mus., Vol. I, p. 125, 1878). 
The route by which this little waif reached the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence is open to conjecture. My opinion is that it was car- 
ried to sea in a storm, and, chancing to fall in with a northward 
bound vessel, remained about the rigging till within sight of land ; 
and were the vessel bound for Quebec the first land neared would 
probably have been Point de Monts, only nine miles from the 
spot where it was picked up, emaciated and dead. 
